Commentary

The Open Material Transfer Agreement is a material-transfer agreement that enables broader sharing and use of biological materials by biotechnology practitioners working within the practical realities of technology transfer.

Greater safeguards are needed to address the personal safety, security and privacy risks arising from increasing adoption of neurotechnology in the consumer realm.

Expert curation at present remains the only reliable solution for interpretation of mutation information in the clinical practice of oncology.

Why digitally powered real-world evidence is the fix needed for our broken clinical trials system.

Why cellulosic biofuels have fallen short of expectations and what we can do about it.

Magistral drug preparation offers a model to circumvent many of the technological, regulatory and financial challenges that prevent provision of the right drug at the right time to the right patient.

To ensure global food security for all, the adoption of crop improvement technologies is no longer just an option—it is an imperative.

Changing the academic reward system to improve translational medicine should start by moving away from a myopic focus on publications.

Improvements must be made to the qualification process for biomarkers as primary endpoints in pivotal clinical studies of treatments for the rarest of diseases.

Lessons from the US Biodefense program should inform international efforts to build a medical countermeasure enterprise for emerging infectious diseases.

To upend current barriers to sharing clinical data and insights, we need a framework that not only accounts for choices made by trial participants but also qualifies researchers wishing to access and analyze the data.

Digital medicine offers the possibility of continuous monitoring, behavior modification and personalized interventions at low cost, potentially easing the burden of chronic disease in cost-constrained healthcare systems.

The markets may be softening on biotech, but overall the sector remains in an incredibly strong environment.

For the benefits of digital medicine to be fully realized, we need not only to find a shared home for personal health data but also to give individuals the right to own them.

Digital medicine companies can incorporate and build on existing business models in tech and biomedicine to bring transformational new products to market and eventually reshape medicine.

New instruments are needed to realize the potential of quantitative and systematic imaging of living samples. But what would such a microscope look like?

Clear and logical regulatory guidelines on the process and requirements for approval of health apps and wearable sensors will be essential for the digital medicine sector to unleash its full potential.

One of molecular biology's intellectual leaders, Alex Rich made fundamental discoveries concerning nucleic acids and ribosomes, which served not only as a foundation for modern biology but also spurred the field of biotechnology.

In the coming years, patient phenotypes captured to enhance health and wellness will extend to human interactions with digital technology.

Healthcare priorities all too often ignore the importance of diagnostics for disease control and case management. The Ebola epidemic illustrates the folly of this attitude when few therapeutic or prophylactic interventions are available.